GSF Accelerator Inducts and Funds its Inaugural Batch of 15 Startups in India

GSF Accelerator has inducted and funded its inaugural batch of 15 startups in India, across Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi. The multi-city tech accelerator’s program commenced on October 15, 2012 in all three cities: Delhi NCR (6 startups), Bangalore (5) and Mumbai (4)

Workshops and Activities

Each startup has gone through 10 workshops and met with over 25 mentors in the first two weeks of the program. Over the 7 weeks of intensive coaching, startups will go through 25 workshops focusing on different aspects of building business and products, raising finances, technology, and marketing. They

will have one-on-one meetings with 100 mentors. GSF Accelerator has also inducted 15 Entrepreneurs-in-Residence who are working closely with these startups.“These 15 startups will now meet over 400 investors at GSF2012 in India’s biggest Startup-investor conference where they will seek further financing. GSF Superangels will provide seed funding to 5 or 6 startups this year. The GSF Accelerator represents a landmark effort to build the entrepreneurship ecosystem in India,” said Rajesh Sawhney, founder and curator of GSF Accelerator.

Selection Program

GSF Accelerator reviewed more than 400 start-ups before selecting the final 15 companies. “We saw immense interest from start-ups across the country. Although the initial plan was to accept 12 start-ups into the program, the final list includes 15 start-ups. The diversity of startups at GSF is unique. We have young teams with founders who are currently students in IITs to a few serial entrepreneurs,” Sawhney added.

Sawhney is also founder of GSF Superangels, a network of 30 digital founders and investors. GSF Accelerator has partnered with 500 Startups from Silicon

Valley, Seedcamp from Europe, and Ruvento from Singapore, thus forming a global network of springboards for Indian startups. He was formerly president of Reliance Entertainment, and also founder of the portal Indiatimes.com and MVAS service 8888 of the Times Group.Startup Profiles

The selected startups are building innovative solutions in a range of diverse domains: Mobile, Cloud, Enterprise solutions, Developer tools, Imaging applications, Cab share, Hyper Local services, Payment solutions, and innovative Reverse Logistic platforms. Each of these start-ups brings a combination of high market potential, strong founding team and innovative product.

Bangalore (5 startups) 

Little Eye Labs is building the next generation of tools for mobile app developers. Its innovative tools provide easy visualization of the inner workings of a mobile app, enabling insights like never before – the mobile app equivalent of a CT scanner. (Visit LittleEye Labs)

EmployeeSocial is India's first and only cloud‐based social rewards system. Integrated with a powerful enterprise social network and a corporate price store, EmployeeSocial enables organizations to manage employee loyalty and engagement seamlessly. (Visit EmployeeSocial)

Zoomdeck is an innovative platform for great conversations around photos. By letting you add interactive tags to any photo, Zoomdeck enables meaningful conversations – right there on the photo. (Visit Zoomdeck)

HackerEarth is an innovative platform that puts real‐world programming problems at the center of the tech ‐hiring process, making for swifter and more cost-effective hiring. The platform allows Engineering Managers to create online programming tests across several programming language and platforms. The applicant's code is compiled, tested, and evaluated using a range of metrics to help companies filter candidates quickly and accurately. (Visit HackerEarth)

Eduflix is test preparation made easy, for students without access to good teachers. Eduflix creates a personalized problem‐solving experience using its adaptive technology platform. Eduflix provides real time feedback to students, enabling them to monitor progress and see instant improvement in their test‐scores. (Visit EduFlix)

Mumbai (4 Startups)

Tushky offers an online marketplace for free time. Users can monetize their time by organizing and offering fresh experiences; or discover and book exciting new choices for activities and getaways. (Visit Tushky)

BucketBolt.com aims at transforming the traditional method of buying and selling books, with India’s first online managed marketplace for used educational books. For students, BucketBolt provides access to the largest repository of used books – delivered to their doorsteps. Operationally, BucketBolt is building inventory by integrating a highly fragmented supplier network of students and bookstores. (Visit BucketBolt)

Sharedcab.com is solving the problem of the regular urban commute by offering a cost‐effective comfortable shared travel solution to the Indian masses. Its innovative systems efficiently pool commuters and match routes in real‐time. Sharedcab is redefining urban travel while maintaining a strong focus on reducing traffic congestion and making India a better place to live in. (Visit SharedCab)

Pokkt brings together the two of the biggest drivers of digital business in India – the online services sector and e‐commerce players – to provide value to the end customer. Pokkt.com is India's first “Transactional Advertising Platform”which rewards customers with exclusive offers from online/offline retailers in return for sharing information to advertisers.

Delhi/NCR (6 Startups)

Zapper makes television advertisements interactive. Its innovative platform helps brands identify and engage personally with ad‐viewers in real‐time. Through Zapper, anyone can seamlessly interact with their favorite brands, discover fresh content and dive into a fun and gamified environment.

Playcez is the next generation of local discovery. Built on proprietary, soon-to‐be-patented technology, Playcez mines social media data in real‐time to provide location‐specific suggestions based on who is saying what, where. Whether they are looking to eat, play or shop, Playcez is set to become the tool of choice for India’s mobile‐savvy youth. (Visit PlayCez)

Exit10 GamesInc allows consumers to trade‐up their electronic goods at their doorstep. Exit10 makes new products affordable to its customers by monetizing their existing ones, which are then resold or recycled. Its GamesINC portal has established itself as the #1 buying, selling, and certification site for video games in India. Exit10 is currently expanding to new categories with broader appeal. (Visit Exit 10 GamesInc)

AadhaarUp is revolutionizing mobile payments by making them simple, efficient and truly possible for individuals and merchants alike. With its easy‐to‐use and secure mobile app, payments to individuals and merchants will be just a click away. For merchants, our reliable point‐of‐sale terminals cost a fraction of existing options, with almost instantaneous activation. (Visit AdhaarUp)

Gingr is India’s first mobile service that lets users communicate with businesses seamlessly. Gingr believes that speaking with businesses should be easy and efficient. Gingr is making this possible with a mobile chat platform where users can query multiple businesses at once, and receive quick responses. (Visit Gingr)

SilverPush is the first company to allow app owners and ad networks to intelligently connect with mobile users. Until now, app owners have struggled to monetize their apps due to infrequent usage ,while brands have been reluctant to advertise on mobile due to limited user data. SilverPush’s algorithms analyze multiple sources of data, and identify the most lucrative opportunities to deliver targeted content to users via push notifications, SMS, email and more. (Visit SilverPush)

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